by Lily Paradis
He started tracing the rings in the trunk, and I felt dizzy looking at all the rings. I sat down on the edge of it and started following his finger.
Circles. Our fingers were going in circles just like we were.
“Imagine what these rings have seen,” Jesse said, his voice cutting through the silence. “Something happened, people happened, people died. And this tree saw it all—until it didn’t.”
The way he spoke was so poetic that my mouth dropped slightly. No person would ever get me the way he did.
Circles. The rings on this stump still went in circles.
I studied Jesse’s face, and I thought about our future. I thought about Jesse when he would be old and wrinkled, and his dark hair would have a touch of gray.
As if he read my mind, he reached out and touched my face almost like he was tracing the wrinkles that would be there when I was an old woman. Laughter lines. They would only be there if I smiled. If I lived long enough. If I had a happy life.
Would my life be happy without him?
The pieces of my heart would never go back together. That was clear to me.
All I knew was that I couldn’t have him right now. It was impossible. Could I have him in a year? Two years? Five years? Ten years? I didn’t know. All I knew was that although the universe was pushing us together, it was also pushing us apart.
It was pushing us in circles.
Jesse’s hand still rested on my face.
I gathered up my skirt and ran back to the house without another word.
I ran.
I just ran.
I didn’t look back.
Now
I’M STANDING OUTSIDE of my new building with Hayden. It hits me then, as I’m staring out at the cars in the street, that I’ve just put down roots.
I’ve never had roots.
Jesse was the only root I ever had, and I yanked him out and tried to be rid of him because no one could water.
I just put down roots.
I look at the man standing next to me, and he holds his hand up to his face to block the sun, so he can see me better.
“You know what’s tonight?” he asks me.
“What?”
“Manhattanhenge.”
“That’s a thing?”
“That’s a thing.”
“What is it?” I’m nervous, and I think my voice shakes, but I can’t stop it.
“Twice a year, the sun lines up perfectly with the buildings of Manhattan. It’s like Stonehenge or the temples in Central America where the sun lines up on the solstice, and you can see snake shadows running up and down the stones.”
“What time is it at?”
“Sunset.”
I need to learn how to speak again, but my brain is too busy trying to understand what I’ve just done with my life by buying an apartment before I have a job and why I’ve decided to stay here to begin with.
“Tate?”
Hayden is trying to get my attention, and I’m not sure how long I’ve been zoned out for.
“Tate? Do you want to watch it with me?”
Yes.
Say yes.
“Yes,” I say, doing my brain’s bidding.
“Good. But first, I’m going to show you the city.”
I already know the city pretty well, but if Hayden wants to take me somewhere, I’ll let him.
His hand laces through mine, and his other rises to a car that pulls up to the curb next to us. No doubt, it’s Al.
“Hayden,” I ask, pulling him back toward me and away from Al’s air-conditioning, “have you ever taken the subway?”
He shakes his head.
“Then, how do you know the city?”
He looks at me like I’ve just dumbfounded him, and he waves Al away.
“Only you, Tate McKenna.”
He smiles that kind of smile that comes deep from your soul, and no matter what you do, you can’t stop it. It’s that kind of smile that could get you in trouble in class. It gives you away like no other because it’s not just that something’s funny. It’s that you’ve been touched deep inside your being, and you just can’t help but outwardly express it.
“I’m all yours,” he says to my silence because I’m staring at him.
I think he means it in more ways than one.
“Good,” I say. I smile, too, as I squint back at him. “Because there’s someone I want you to meet.”
I make Hayden sort out the subway system himself, and he looks like an idiot, standing next to the subway map by the door to the station. People are actually bumping into him as he traces his fingers over the different lines, trying to determine the best way to get to the station I’ve told him to get us to.
He comes back with a mini map. “Is this the right one?”
I shrug evilly, knowing that it’s not, but I’m going to let him make some rookie mistakes today. I swipe my MetroCard into the reader and hold out my hand. He looks at me like I’m insane, and I tell him he’s paying for this adventure because he’s the one who can’t figure out the subway.
He hands over a black-and-gold credit card, and I dip it into the machine to fill my card. Then, I buy him his own. I hand him his credit card and his first MetroCard.
“Why won’t one work for both of us?” he asks.
“Because,” I tell him as I slide through one of the turnstiles, “it can’t be swiped again at the same station within a certain amount of time. That way you can’t cheat if you have a weekly card.”
“Doesn’t that cause a problem if you miss the swipe the first time?” He looks down at the turnstile and then up at me.
“Yes,” I say. “So, make sure you do it right the first time.”
Seeing Hayden Rockefeller as a fish out of water is hilarious and extremely endearing. Although he’s nervous, I think he’s enjoying his time as one of the people instead of as their king.
He swipes the card and hurries through, and I can’t help but laugh at him. It’s so clear he’s new to this that other people are staring at him. But this is New York, and half of them are so busy trying to get to where they’re going that they don’t realize who he is. The other half just keep their heads down in their books or newspapers or phones with their music playing that it doesn’t matter.
“So, we’re taking that line, right?” Hayden shows me on the mini map.
I shrug. “This is all on you. Rule number one: Always have the subway map saved on your phone so you don’t look like a tourist.”
He walks over to a trashcan and deposits the map. Then, he tries to pull it up on his phone to no avail because there’s no service in the subway.
When I feel smug enough, I hand him my phone, so he can look at the subway lines. I let him lead me to the wrong one. We’ll be going entirely in the wrong direction because we should be going downtown, not up.
I don’t really care because I’d let Hayden take me anywhere.
Two wrong stops later, we’re finally at one of the stops near Catherine’s apartment. We get out at Union Square and quickly pass my favorite restaurant in the world, The Grey Dog. Then, I show him my favorite bagel store, Bagel Bob’s. Once, during finals week, Catherine went twice in one day just to cope with the stress.
Finally, we reach Washington Square Park.
“Don’t walk underneath the arch,” I tell him. “You won’t graduate.”
“Tate, I’ve already graduated—twice. I don’t think that’ll be an issue.”
I look at him like I have no idea who he is. “You graduated?”
He looks back like I’m the crazy one here. “Yes. In May.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three. Twenty-four in December. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” I tell him, not feeling my age at all.
I feel like this conversation doesn’t match where we are in our relationship, but it also does. I assumed he was the same age as Catherine because he went to that graduate school party in Harlem. It never occurred to me tha
t he wasn’t still in school. It’s impressive to me that he pursued higher education when he clearly would have had a job and been just fine because of his last name.
“I guess I could have researched you online,” I tell him.
“I prefer you didn’t.” He takes my hand again and makes a point of walking around the arch. “Just in case—since you haven’t graduated again yet.”
“I’m not sure I’ll go to grad school,” I tell him truthfully. “I’m not sure what’s in the cards for me.”
I make the mistake of looking up into his eyes, and the light reflects off them in such a way that they look like they’re the same shade of green as the lightsaber that Luke Skywalker wields in Star Wars.
I can’t stand to look at them, so I drag him away to find whom I’m looking for. I spot him, sitting in his usual place on one of the benches.
“Hayden,” I say, “this is my friend Jim.”
Jim is the one who told me to stay beautiful when I was taking the subway to my favorite place in New York at sunset. Since then, I’ve said hello to him every day as I pass, and I’ve grown rather fond of him.
Immediately, Hayden reaches for his wallet.
“No, son,” Jim tells him, “I don’t want your money. I just want your time.”
It makes me wonder if I have a heart when I see Hayden Rockefeller sit down next to him to listen to what he has to say. I watch them for the next hour, and then a man comes up to me and taps my shoulder.
“Excuse me,” he says timidly, which surprises me since he’s not a small man at all. He’s holding a camera and looking at Hayden and Jim. “I was wondering if I could take a photograph of the three of you. I take pictures of people around New York and sometimes interview them. The three of you are quite striking, especially you and Mr. Rockefeller.”
“You know who he is,” I say to the man, more of a statement than a question. I’m testing him to see if he’s going to exploit Hayden or not, and I shock myself because I feel so protective of him.
“Yes, I’m honored to find him here,” the man says back.
I decide that this is okay, but I’m still on edge.
I turn to Hayden and Jim, who haven’t even noticed that I’m talking to someone else because they’re so engrossed in their conversation.
“That was back in ’79…” Jim trails off.
Both of them agree to have their picture taken, and the man photographs us from several different angles. Then, he interviews Jim and Hayden. The sun is setting, and I realize we’re going to miss Manhattanhenge if we don’t hurry.
“Jim,” I say as the man thanks us and leaves, “would you like to come up to my apartment and watch the sun set with us?”
Jim laughs, and I’m glad to see the smile on his face.
“Oh, no, I’m fine here. This is my place. You kids go on. I’ll see you another day.”
I thank Jim, and Hayden shakes his hand. I’m proud of him because I feel like I’ve just shown him another side of the city he thinks he knows so well.
“What’s your favorite color, Tate?” he asks me as we walk to the subway station.
I don’t even have to think about it. “Lightsaber green.”
Now
WE RUN INTO Trader Joe’s on the way back to grab a few groceries and paper plates since I have nothing at my apartment. From the almost three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the city from my clock tower, Manhattanhenge is stunning. It’s one of my new favorite things about New York—aside from him.
Hayden stands behind me, and I can feel the heat from his body. I get the sense that he wants to step forward and wrap his arms around me, and I think I want him to.
I know I want him to.
I can’t bring myself to let him, and I start to feel like my apartment is as tiny as an elevator.
“This is going to be the worst dinner you’ve ever had,” I tell him.
I start to pull things out of the paper bag. He carried the bag and had bought the groceries with his shiny black-and-gold card, but he clearly hadn’t paid attention when I picked the food out. I think he was too busy paying attention to me.
Hayden watches me sometimes, and it reminds me of how Jesse used to watch me. It’s like every movement I make is sacred and infinitely interesting.
I start to pull frozen okra out of the bag and separate the good pieces from the bad.
“What are you doing?” He comes up behind me and looks at me like I’m a crazy person.
“Some of the pieces are weird. I don’t want them.”
“It all tastes the same, Tate.”
I shrug and continue with what I’m doing. Sadly, I’m a visual person, and the shriveled-up brown pieces are probably going to taste different to me just because I think they will.
He comes up next to me and completely invades my space. He starts putting my good pieces in one steamer bag and the rejected ones in another.
“What are you doing, Hayden?”
He makes quick work of it and shoves them in the microwave. I didn’t even remember that I had a microwave, but luckily, it’s built into the cabinetry, or we would be eating frozen okra and raw noodles. I put a newly purchased pan on the stove to boil water while Hayden puts the freshly steamed okra on two plates.
“I want your crappy okra,” he says.
I feel like we’re talking about more than vegetables. “Why?”
“Let’s just say I have a new perspective on life, thanks to a certain someone.”
“I don’t think I did that much,” I say. “I kind of hijacked your day.”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about you. I meant meeting Jim,” he says.
But I know he means me, too.
He pulls me close, which startles me so much that I almost burn my hand on the stove.
“We’ll have another exploration day,” he says. He kisses the top of my head.
Roots.
I have roots.
It both thrills me and kills me that these roots might become a sapling—or God forbid, an entire tree.
Hayden and I sit on my floor and eat our pasta and crappy okra because that’s all I bought from the store. It’s late, and I know he has work tomorrow. I need to find work tomorrow to pay for this place. I won’t sleep here tonight because I don’t have anything to fill it, so I need to go back to Catherine’s. I need to buy a bed. I need to buy bookshelves. I don’t have a lot to fill it since I left my life in Charleston, but I need something so that the walls don’t echo from a sound as small as a whisper.
It’s starting to make me go crazy, so I walk Hayden to my elevator. I left my purse inside, and I want to sit in my new home for a while before I go to sleep. That way, I won’t keep Catherine awake since I don’t sleep the same hours as she does.
My stomach feels strange.
The elevator.
Hayden presses the button and says good night, and then he leans in to kiss me on the cheek.
It’s just my cheek.
My heart is starting to pound, and I feel his lips touch my skin. I don’t think I have a heart anymore. I think I’ve died.
There’s something wrong with me.
He’s saying good-bye, and I’m not reacting. I’m just standing here in Tate World, all alone.
I don’t want to be alone.
Something inside me breaks.
“Fuck it.”
He’s walking backward into the elevator, and all of a sudden, I’m flying in with him. My body hits his with such force that we’re both thrown to the back wall, and his head hits the wood paneling. I know that hurts, but I also know that my lips touch his the second his head hits, so I don’t think about it anymore, and I know he can’t even feel the back of his head because he’s too focused on what’s happening in the front.
I vaguely hear the elevator doors close behind us, and we’re traveling downward. Seventy flights—that’s how long we have, so long as no one else wants to use this elevator right now.
My hands are in his hair, and his hands are
all over my back.
My mind briefly floats to Jesse and how much this would hurt him, but I don’t care. He hurt me first. Hayden Rockefeller is kissing me, and I’ve never been kissed by someone who actually cares about me, who truly wants me in his arms the way Hayden’s holding me right now.
Forty flights.
Suddenly, my head is the one hitting the back of the elevator wall, and Hayden’s pushing me against it. I have the urge to reach for the hem of his T-shirt, but we’re in an elevator.
Twenty flights.
This elevator goes too fast. Whoever invented this elevator should be shot. Who was that guy? Otis? I’m going to track down his descendants and kill them for making elevators so fast.
That heart of mine that’s been stomped on so many times? It’s back. Public service announcement: Tate McKenna has a heart. It’s right here, beating in my chest—for someone other than Jesse.
The elevator doors open, and we’re forced to separate because an old woman is standing there waiting to get in.
Neither of us can breathe right, and I have no idea what to say to him because words aren’t good enough. I can tell that words will never be good enough for us.
“Bye,” I say breathlessly. I take a step back in the elevator as he steps out.
His eyes flash lightsaber green, but now, they’re full of secrets and something else.
“Elevators,” the old woman says with a knowing smirk on her face. “Things never change, do they?”
“No,” I breathe out. I’m not sure when my lungs are going to return to a normal state. “I hope they never do.”
I stand, pressed up against the back of the elevator wall as if it retains the memories of what happened just a minute before. She gets out a few floors before mine, and I’m alone in this box. I wish I weren’t.
My phone lights up when I get back to my floor.
Hayden: Elevators are officially my new favorite mode of transportation.
I text back immediately.
Mine, too.
Mine. Too.